Personally I chose the 50 prime. Arguably the best lens for your money on the market, no matter what brand you shoot with! Relatively cheap, plus super light weight, great F/Stop range, and amazing macro lens. But thats not the only reason I chose the 50 prime. I chose the 50 prime because of Crop Factor (Crop Factor is not specific to the 50mm, it applies to all lenses and all cameras). Personally I shoot with the D3 & hopefully some time soon the D800, both FX (full frame) cameras with an option to shoot in DX mode. DX is Nikons code for a cropped sensor. In a nutshell a cropped sensor will automatically zoom any lens you put on the camera. Bam! This lens is 50mm on my FX camera, and 75mm on my DX camera! Two lenses in one!! It does the because the sensor isn’t large enough to cover the entire area of the glass. (on a lens designed for FX bodies) DX lenses are designed for cropped sensors, but the focal length measurements remain the same. Focal length is the result of a formula comparing the distances of the front and rear glass elements of the lens to the camera’s sensor (of film). Read more on focal length on Wikipedia. So mechanically the focal length of a lens never changes when you put it on a FX or DX camera. Its specifically the size of the sensor that magnifies the image on a DX body. This is where it gets slightly confusing.. Different lenses are designed specifically for FX or DX cameras. If you are Nikon, you can use any lens with any body. Other brands do not offer this flexibility. There are however some limitations you should be aware of.

For this example I’m sticking with 50mm, to my knowledge there are no 50mm lenses designed specifically for DX (cropped sensors), but for simplicity I made one up.

A FX 50mm lens on a full frame camera will give you an image at a true 50mm

A FX 50mm lens on a cropped sensor camera will give you an image at approximately 75mm (depending on the ratio of the crop, some are smaller than others..)

A DX 50mm lens on a full frame camera is still 5omm, but you will not be using the full sensor because the lens is designed for a cropped sensor camera. (you will not zoom in or out, but you will not use all of the camera’s megapixels. For example the D800 is a 36mp camera in FX mode. In DX mode since you are only using a portion of the sensor, you will only shoot images at 16mp.)

A DX 50mm lens on a cropped sensor camera is still approximately 75mm. (nothing changes between a FX 50mm and a DX 50mm)

Starting to make sense? Essentially the only thing a full frame sensor does is give you the true focal length for each lens you put on your camera. It makes every lens a bit wider when compared to the same lens on a DX camera. Now this does affect several other aspects of your photography! For example, depth of field on each lens will change. So be careful not to get to used to focal lengths on your DX camera if you ever plan to upgrade to a FX body, everything will change! Personally I love having one FX and one DX camera in my bag at all times. Why, because it doubles the lens options I have without paying for additional lenses! Previously I shot with the Nikon D3 and Nikon D300s, but recently sold the D300s to replace it with the D800, which is a FX body, reasons behind this can be found in the blog post Gear.. I wrote a while ago. (little insight, the D800 is a beast and produces great DX shots!) If you have no experience with either a FX or DX camera, check out BorrowLenses.com and rent one!